Latest news with #GRACEFollow-On
India Today
08-08-2025
- Science
- India Today
Climate crisis drying out land twice the size of UP every year, satellite reveals
Dry regions across the world are expanding by an area nearly twice the size of Uttar Pradesh (UP) every year.A new study published in the journal Science Advances, in collaboration with NASA, reveals that several parts of the world are witnessing a sharp decline in water findings are based on satellite data collected from two US-German missions, Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO), spanning 2002 to Launched in 2002 and 2018, respectively, the GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites measure changes in the Earth's gravity field to track underground water storage and ice mass, offering an unprecedented look into the planet's water regions are experiencing rapidly changing weather events, leading to increasingly severe droughts, floods, and ARE DRY REGIONS GETTING DRIER?Several regions across the globe have become significantly drier compared to earlier decades. One major zone spans from southwestern North America to Central America, where prolonged dry spells are becoming the in places where rainfall remains relatively steady, climate change-induced shifts in global weather patterns are making conditions drier. For example, a prolonged La Nia phase from 2020 to 2023 placed Eastern Africa under sustained drought spread of the European drought has now created a mega-drying region stretching from North Africa through Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, northern China, and Southeast Asia. WET AREAS ARE ALSO CHANGINGResearchers also found that wet areas are getting wetter, particularly in East Africa and western Sub-Saharan Africa, driven by global warming and the Earth warms, more water vapour enters the atmosphere, leading to heavier rainfall in some regions, depending on their geography. But researchers caution that the pace at which dry regions are drying is outstripping the pace at which wet regions are getting global warming surpassing the Paris Agreement threshold, July 2025 recorded a temperature anomaly of 1.53C, well above the target limit. Widespread deforestation, unplanned urbanisation, and rising emissions are pushing climate systems toward irreversible avoid further devastation, experts stress the need for strict policy enforcement, sustainable development, and coordinated global action to slow down climate change and its impacts.- EndsMust Watch
The Hill
28-07-2025
- Science
- The Hill
Freshwater is disappearing from the Earth at alarming rates: Study
The planet has endured massive freshwater losses over the past two decades due to the combined effects of climate change, overconsumption and drought, a new study has found. Arid land areas are expanding at a rate roughly twice the size of California each year, according to the study, published in Science Advances. Dry spots are now drying up faster than wet areas are getting wetter — reversing historic hydrological patterns, per the research. This continental-scale phenomenon of 'mega-drying,' the study authors warned, could have severe consequences on water security, agriculture, sea level rise and global stability. Describing their results as 'staggering,' the researchers determined that 75 percent of the world's population lives in 101 countries that have been losing freshwater for the past 22 years 'These findings send perhaps the most alarming message yet about the impact of climate change on our water resources,' principal investigator Jay Famiglietti, a professor at Arizona State University's School of Sustainability, said in a statement. 'Continents are drying, freshwater availability is shrinking, and sea level rise is accelerating,' Famiglietti added. To evaluate changes in terrestrial water storage, the researchers combed through more than two decades of satellite observations — from April 2002 through April 2024 — from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On missions. They defined terrestrial water storage as all of Earth's surface and vegetation water, soil moisture, ice, snow and groundwater stored on land. Ultimately, the researchers identified robust changes in these water storage levels since previous global studies. These declines, they found, have been driven by high-latitude water losses in Russia and Canada, extreme in Central America and Europe and groundwater depletion — responsible for 68 percent of the losses alone. The researchers also identified a 'tipping point' in 2014-2015, years that meteorologists generally characterize as 'mega El-Niño.' In North America, El-Niño years typically involve dryness and warmth in the northern U.S. and Canada, with increased flooding in the South. Near the tipping point, climate extremes began accelerating, leading to a surge in groundwater use and continental drying-up that surpassed the rates of glacier and ice sheet melting, per the study. Evaluating their 22 years of data, the scientists also determined that certain water storage loss 'hotspots' previously assumed to be isolated were actually interconnected. These places, they concluded, make up four continental-scale, mega-drying regions. The first region spans the U.S. Southwest, Mexico and Central America and includes many major food-producing regions. The second, meanwhile, includes Alaska and Northern Canada, which are stricken by snow and permafrost melt, as well as drying in agricultural zones. Northern Russia, per the study, is the third region and is also undergoing considerable snow and permafrost melting in high latitude zones. The fourth area, the Middle East-North Africa region and Pan-Eurasia, houses multiple major desert cities, food producing hubs, shrinking seas and urban cities, the researchers noted. 'It is striking how much non-renewable water we are losing,' lead author Hrishikesh Chandanpurkar, a research scientist at Arizona State, said in a statement. 'Glaciers and deep groundwater are sort of ancient trust funds,' he added. 'Instead of using them only in times of need such as a prolonged drought, we are taking them for granted.' Chandanpurkar also lamented the fact that humans are failing to replenish groundwater reservoirs during wet years and are thereby nearing 'an imminent freshwater bankruptcy.' Describing their findings as 'a planetary wake-up call,' the authors stressed a need for ongoing research that can help inform policymakers about these dire water challenges. The researchers also advocated for community-level opportunities to make meaningful change, particularly when it comes to excessive pumping of groundwater. The consequences of overusing the remaining groundwater, Famiglietti warned, could threaten 'food and water security for billions of people around the world.' 'This is an 'all-hands-on-deck' moment — we need immediate action on global water security,' he said.
Business Mayor
14-05-2025
- Science
- Business Mayor
Sharp depletion in soil moisture drives land water to flow into oceans, contributing to sea level rise
The increasing frequency of once-in-a-decade agricultural and ecological drought has underscored the urgency of studying hydrological changes. A research team from the Department of Land Surveying and Geo-informatics of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has collaborated with international experts to analyse the estimated changes in land water storage over the past 40 years by utilising space geodetic observation technology and global hydrological change data. This innovative method has revealed a rapid depletion in global soil moisture, resulting in a significant amount of water flowing into the oceans, leading to a rise in sea levels. The research provides new insights into the driving factors behind the alarming reduction in terrestrial water storage and rise in sea levels. The findings have been published in the international journal Science . Since polar motion reflects mass redistribution within the Earth system, integrating models and observations across the atmosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere is crucial. However, previous challenges in measuring terrestrial water storage, particularly groundwater and root zone soil moisture, limited understanding of hydrological depletion at continental scales. Prof. Jianli CHEN, Professor of the PolyU Department of Land Surveying and Geo-informatics and core member of the Research Institute for Land and Space and the international team employed satellite altimetry and gravity missions, including the Gravity Recovery and Satellite Experiment (GRACE), and GRACE Follow-On, to enable continental-scale observations of terrestrial water storage variations. By integrating this with global mean sea levels and polar motion data, the team has explored terrestrial water storage depletion patterns. Notably, this study introduced novel methods for estimating global soil moisture, which improves the accuracy of continental and global scale modeling to enable a more effective understanding of soil moisture variations under climate change. The melting of Greenland's ice sheet is recognised as the largest single contributor to the rise in global sea levels, adding approximately 0.8mm annually. This study reveals that between 2000 and 2002, the global terrestrial water storage significantly declined, with a total of 1,614 billion tons of water lost to the oceans, which is twice as much as resulting from the current melting of Greenland ice, and equivalent to a 4.5mm rise in sea levels. Since then, the rapid loss of terrestrial water storage has been followed by a more gradual but continuous depletion, with no signs of recovery. In addition, compared to the period from 1979 to 1999, a notable decline in global average soil moisture was observed from 2003 to 2021. Between 2003 and 2011, the Earth's pole shifted 58cm toward 93° East Longitude, demonstrating that the continued decline in soil moisture is leading to a reduction in terrestrial water storage. The team also pointed out that precipitation deficits and stable evapotranspiration caused by global warming, changing rainfall patterns and increasing ocean temperatures are likely the key factors for the abrupt decline in terrestrial water storage. The ERA5-Land soil moisture data of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts' corroborates these findings, showing substantial terrestrial water storage losses in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. In Asia and Europe, the affected areas expanded from northeastern Asia and eastern Europe to broader regions across East and Central Asia, as well as Central Europe, following the sharp water storage depletion observed between 2000 and 2002. Read More Evidence of geothermal activity within icy dwarf planets With increasing agricultural irrigation in regions such as northeast China and the western United States, and global greening, soil moisture may further diminish in semi-arid areas with intensive agriculture and high levels of greening. The team suggests the need for improved land surface models which consider these factors for a more comprehensive understanding of long- term changes in terrestrial water storage. Prof. Jianli Chen said, 'Sea level change and Earth rotation serve as indicators of large-scale mass changes in the Earth system. Accurately measured sea level change and variation in Earth rotation provide a unique tool for monitoring large-scale mass changes in the global water cycle. By integrating multiple modern space geodetic observations, it enables comprehensive analysis of the driving factors behind changes in terrestrial water storage and sea level rise. This, in turn, provides reliable data for climate and Earth system science experts to further investigate drought issues, aiding authorities in formulating water resource management and climate change mitigation strategies to address new challenges posed by climate change.'
India Today
05-05-2025
- Science
- India Today
108 billion tons per year: Antarctica witnesses sudden rise in glacier ice
As climate change continues to batter the world with extreme weather events occurring from the US to India, there is a surprising new trend observed on one end of the planet - have noted a surprising jump in the Antarctic ice for the first time in decades, according to a new study published by Science China Earth Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) mission and its successor, GRACE-FO (GRACE Follow-On) satellites have observed a rise in the ice mass across the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Winter sea ice cover in the Arctic has reached an unprecedented low. (Photo: AFP) advertisement The study led by Dr. Wang and Prof. Shen at Tongji University has found that between 2021 and 2023, the ice sheet experienced a record-breaking increase in overall experienced a moderate increase in sea ice until 2015, followed by a sharp decline starting in University researchers say satellite gravimetry data shows that from 2011 to 2020, the Antarctic Ice Sheet lost 142 gigatons of ice per year. That trend flipped between 2021 and 2023 when the ice sheet allegedly gained about 108 gigatons of ice per year. From 2002 to 2010, Antarctica's ice sheet was losing about 74 billion tons of ice per year. From 2011 to 2020, the loss nearly doubled to about 142 billion tons per year, mainly because of faster ice melting in West Antarctica and parts of East things changed after that — between 2021 and 2023, Antarctica actually gained ice at a rate of about 108 billion tons per year, mostly due to unusually high Antarctica is gaining, researchers earlier highlighted the trend is not visible in the Arctic. Winter sea ice cover in the Arctic has reached an unprecedented low at its annual peak, according to recent data from NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).Nasa said that on March 22, 2025, the maximum extent of Arctic sea ice was recorded at 14.33 million square kilometres, falling below the previous record low of 14.41 million square kilometres set in Reel
